veiled4allah: Organization of the Islamic Conference: Muslims must fight extremism

Muslim nations and scholars must speak out against militant extremism or take some blame for the West's misunderstanding of Islam, the head of the world's largest body of Islamic nations has said. Current chairman of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC) Abdullah Ahmad Badawi told a conference on Thursday that Muslims must "take effective measures to deconstruct the intellectual and ideological foundations of religious extremism and sectarianism, for they do great damage to the cause of Islam and the welfare of Muslims"...

...He added that believers were as much to blame as non-Muslims for misinterpretations of jihad, or holy struggle, which is often distorted as a religious justification for violence.

He said it was unfortunate that some people had narrowed the concept of jihad to mean physical fighting and "even more unfortunate that this is the only meaning commonly understood by the general public".

"If Muslims themselves can make this mistake, what more can we expect from others?"

The Muslim world has not been very successful in engaging the Western media, he added.

"We have not made our presence sufficiently felt or our views sufficiently heard in the Western media."...

...The 57-nation OIC is the largest gathering that represents the views of the world's 1.3 billion Muslims, but is largely ignored by the West due to its scant means and lack of an institutional framework for action.

Nearly 50 scholars from Burkina Faso, Egypt, Iran, Indonesia, Kazakhstan, Malaysia, Morocco, Nigeria, Palestine, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Sudan, Turkey, and Yemen are attending the three-day summit.

Its recommendations will be submitted at the OIC foreign ministers meeting in Sana'a, Yemen later this year.